This invention relates to a means and method of imaging objects using a single-image detector and multiple energy sources to create disparate information to generate the appearance of a three-dimensional image. Three-dimensional imaging of both static and dynamic images have been known for many years. Early efforts at three-dimensional imaging involved the use of the stereoscope in which were viewed a pair of images or pictures of the same object, made with two cameras or a camera with a split or multiple lens and in which the lenses were spaced apart. In the systems using two cameras, the lenses were essentially at an interoccular distance. Thus, pairs of disparate images were formed and then viewed with a stereoscope in which each eye viewed the corresponding image. Subsequently, anaglyph stereoscopy was developed in which left and right images were chromatically coded by respected complementary color filters for viewing through corresponding glasses to separate the disparate images required for a three-dimensional effect. Variances of anaglyph stereoscopy were developed using a single-lens system such for example, as those described in Songer U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,199 and Beiser U.S. Pat. No. 4,290,675. The Songer patent exemplifies recent efforts to create a three-dimensional photographic system for both still and motion pictures which produces a compatible three-dimensional disparate information capable of being viewed, either with glasses for three-dimensional effect or viewed without glasses for a two-dimensional photographic effect. That system and others similar to it rely upon means for dividing the color spectrum into distinct images in the camera or image detector by a filter to simulate a multiple-lens system that required left and right eye resolution by appropriate filters or the like when the images are viewed. Such systems generally suffered from a variety of problems including for example, image distortion and blur, problems of image registry, viewer discomfort and fatigue resulting from foreground and background focusing problems, bulky attachments, costly components and other related difficulties.
A more recent effort to create a three-dimensional dynamic imaging system was partially described in a technology update appearing in Popular Mechanics, March 1983 entitled "3-D TV Is Here". In that article, there is an apparent description of a system for making three-dimensional television movies and slices which apparently require no special glasses, cameras, projectors or television sets. The system described generates a monocular depth effect by using conventional video equipment and an encoding device which produces a time-sequence display of images captured from two different points of view. In short, that system takes pictures of an object from two loci spaced apart at an interoccular distance and then displays these disparate image in time-sequence on a single image projector such as a television. This system, like the conventional three-dimensional imaging and anaglyph stereoscopic displays previously described has a number of limitations which have precluded its general acceptance for commercial and other purposes. These limitations include specifically, significant difficulties in decoupling depth information from image jitter and in providing a smooth motion picture or a picture which does not create viewer fatigue.
These and a wide range of other methods exemplified or referenced in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,372,645; 1,595,295; 2,235,743; 2,360,322; 2,568,327; 2,751,826; 3,039,358; 3,731,606; 3,810,213; 3,990,087; 4,009,951; 4,189,210 have not resulted in a generally accepted process for creating a three-dimensional image which can be used for dynamic and static display in photography, television, video taping and other means of graphic representation of images.